It's Complicated
by Mistress Scribbles
Summary: A case leads Sherlock & John to a Holmes family friend's mansion, and to an event in Sherlock's past that he would rather not revisit. S/J friendship/tentative romance; past S/Victor Trevor. Adult situations & language, refs to underage sex & suicide.
1. Chapter 1

It's Complicated

-x-

One

-x-

His internal alarm clock woke him at 6am, as always. It seemed that his actual alarm clock had conditioned his body to stick to its schedule, whether it was a working day or one of his very few holidays.

Today was one of those rare days off. It was Easter Monday, and he had managed to take the long weekend away from London, to visit his family. Not that they would be about at this hour. His mother normally slept until at least 8, and goodness knew what time his brother would surface, if at all.

Tea and toast, then a shower, then a shave, then dressed. That was his little morning ritual. He padded down the grand stairway and across the lobby into the large kitchen. He gazed out of the window at the grounds as he put the kettle on. The gardener really did do a marvelous job. The old place did look so magnificent in the spring, especially as the first rays of a bright morning fell upon the greenery. Cherry blossom blushed the trees and bright daffodils threw sprays of gay yellow about the lawn. The sun was out, the birds were chirruping and…

And his car was gone.

The kettle rumbled into a boil as he gazed at the empty spot on the driveway where his car had been the night before. Not just any car, either – a beautiful new silver Mercedes. Mother's graduation gift. She'd been so proud.

He had only one suspect for this crime.

He dashed to the coat rack in the lobby and checked the pockets of his jacket. The keys were gone. Swearing now, he ran back up the stairs two at a time, and barged into his brother's bedroom.

It was empty. The bed was a state, but clearly hadn't been slept in that night. On his brother's pillow was a note. The note read; "Nice car".

Still cursing furiously – under his breath so as not to wake his mother – he dashed to his room and threw on a pair of trousers and a jumper, then hurried back downstairs.

He was insured to drive his mother's Land Rover. He left her an apologetic note, took the keys and got into the car. He wondered briefly as he turned on the engine how he should search for his missing vehicle and sibling, but logic told him to make it a narrow search. His brother had never taken a driving lesson in his life. The boy was only 15. He couldn't have got terribly far. As much as this suggested that he would not be looking for long, it filled him with a cold dread as to the state he could expect to find his car and little brother in.

He wasn't wrong. After less than ten minutes of driving around, he found his Mercedes wrapped around a sycamore tree at a sharp bend in a narrow country road.

'Jesus.'

He slammed on the brakes to the Land Rover and ran to his stricken car. As he approached it, the driver's side window began to whir open, revealing his young brother at the wheel. Relief at his brother being alive and in possession of the mental and physical capacity to open a window found itself at odds with dismay at the state that the child was in. The boy sported a black eye and a swollen, bloodied lip that he certainly hadn't had on Easter Day. Dried blood on his top lip suggested that he'd been dealt a good crack to the nose, as well. Heavens knew how long the boy had been sitting at the wheel, waiting for somebody to find him, but here he was. He extended a hand – index and middle finger out – mocking him. Flicking him the V. Childish. Between the fingers was a newly lit cigarette. Mocking him, still. Even more childish.

He approached the open driver's window and gave his brother a stony glare. The boy stank of cigarettes and cannabis and… and something else. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. His little brother smiled brightly back at him with puffed, bruised lips.

'Good morning, Mycroft.'

-x-

'OK,' said John with a frown. 'Let's go through this again. So… Sybil is the daughter of Cynthia and Richard Fairchild…'

Sherlock sighed theatrically. 'Grace is the daughter of Sybil and Richard Fairchild.'

'And this is Sybil's party we're going to.'

'Correct. Her 65th birthday. Their daughter Grace is married to Rupert Trevor, who's the one that Sybil asked my Mother to ask me to keep an eye on tonight, hence our presence at this festival of tedium.'

John turned a smile towards the taxi window – pointlessly, since Sherlock caught it anyway. 'All dressed-up and huffy because your Mum's making you go to a Family Do.'

'Believe me, I wouldn't be going if it weren't so interesting. It's not just fiddling with the books or his secretary that they suspect their Son in Law of.' Sherlock lowered his voice so that the taxi driver wouldn't be able to hear. 'Arms dealing!' he whispered, excitedly. 'To the Taliban! I mean, isn't that brilliant?'

'You do know it was Taliban Militia that shot me, don't you?'

'So? I'm here to prove what he's up to so that the Fairchilds can put a stop to it, not give him a pat on the back for his efforts.'

Sherlock sat back, and John watched as the odd expression that had been playing over his friend's face since talk of going to the Fairchilds' party had begun crept back, covering the grin of delight that had come with the words "arms dealing". If John didn't know better, he might describe that expression as… well, as _nervous_.

But that was crazy.

There was something odd about this particular case, though… a different kind of "odd", that was. Sherlock spoke of his family seldom, and had visited his mother only once since John had known him – and that had just been overnight, and under great duress from Mycroft. It was unlike his friend to go so out of his way to help a family friend. And as gleeful as Sherlock sounded as he chatted about arms dealing, John couldn't help but wonder if that wasn't really more the other Holmes brother's department. Sherlock had said something about the Fairchilds wanting to be discreet, and not wanting "Mycroft galumphing all over the place with his surveillance equipment and SWAT Teams". It seemed, though, that Mycroft was of the opinion that ensnaring Rupert Trevor should be his jurisdiction. Only half an hour after Sherlock had agreed to help the Fairchilds, Mycroft had rung. Sherlock had snapped down the phone to him for a few minutes, then hung up. Mycroft had rung again and, from Sherlock's expression of indignation a few minutes after that, had hung up on Sherlock. Sherlock had called Mycroft. And so on, and so on. A couple of phrases had stuck in his mind from what he'd caught of Sherlock's side of the argument. One was "I can handle this", which Sherlock had repeated down the phone to his brother several times. The other was "I'm not a kid any more", which had struck John as strange in itself, never mind the hissed, defensive tone that he had said it in. After an hour or so of hang-up tennis, John had given up and gone to the cinema by himself. By the time John had got back from the cinema, Sherlock had been sitting quietly, staring at his laptop as though the argument with his brother had never happened. John knew Sherlock well enough never to bring it up again.

Another odd detail was that, for the first time that John knew of, Sherlock was going to the party wearing a wire. Mycroft's insistence, apparently. John wondered whether it was this intrusion of Mycroft's surveillance gadgetry upon his work that was causing his friend to be so preoccupied. As for John, he'd be happy if he could get all the names and relationships that Sherlock kept spooling out at him in the right order.

The taxi pulled up at their destination – the driveway of a grand country house.

'So which one's Cynthia, then?' John asked, paying the fare.

'Cynthia is the wife of Victor Trevor – Rupert's older brother,' Sherlock replied, getting out and holding open the door for John.

'And they'll be there, too, will they?'

'Oh, yes. The Trevors and the Fairchilds are all very close. Besides which, Cynthia and Rupert are having an affair.'

John raised his eyebrows at Sherlock. The odd, nervous expression had left him again – replaced this time by a familiar smirk.

'Go on, you're dying to tell me how you know.'

'I've friended them on Facebook.'

John blinked. 'You're on Facebook? I'm on Facebook.'

'Everyone's on Facebook. My mother's on Facebook. I could murder Mycroft for showing her how to do that.'

'You haven't friended _me_.'

'Well, what would the point of that be? I live with you. If I wanted to know what kind of socks you wore, I'd just go through your sock drawer.'

'So you're one of those people who only uses Facebook to snoop on people?' John barely paused for breath. 'What am I saying? Of course you are. So I take it Cynthia and Rupert are always leaving flirty little wall posts, then?'

Sherlock grinned. 'No. Quite the opposite. If Harriet and Clara were still together, you'd contact Clara on Facebook from time to time, wouldn't you?'

'Still do,' John told him. 'We play Scrabble.' He laughed a little. 'She's a demon at Scrabble. There was this one time, she got "Opaque" on a triple word score, but then I…'

'Not Cynthia and Rupert,' continued Sherlock over him. 'They're both on that wretched website all the time, but they never, ever post anything on the others' page. No comments on each others' status updates, or photos, or anything. They're being overly cautious. Or trying to be, at least.'

'So this Rupert guy isn't just selling rocket launchers to the Taliban, he's sleeping with his Sister-in-Law as well?' John shook his head and laughed. 'You toffs. You're always up to your necks in it, aren't you? Crime, sleaze, all related to one another… you're worse than the chavs on Jeremy Kyle.'

'What do you mean, "_you_ toffs"?' Sherlock retorted, archly.

'You _are_ a toff, Sherlock.'

'Kindly refrain from lumping me in with all those braying, chinless idiots, John.'

They'd reached the front door of the house.

'Admit it, Sherlock. You are a little bit lacking in the chin department.'

Sherlock stared at him for a moment, then knocked loudly on the door, turning his face away from John's.

'At least I don't look like a gnome.'

'No, you look like a Tolkien Elf in Eveningwear.'

Sherlock stopped knocking and pulled his phone from his pocket. John slid him a sideways glance and watched as he pulled up Google.

'T-O-L-K-I-E-N', helped John.

Sherlock glanced at the results of the image search. 'Very funny.'

The door opened, framing an elegant, faintly equine woman in her 60s. Sybil. The hostess. Had to be.

'Sherlock!' She held her hands wide in welcome. 'Thank you so much for coming. It's been too long. When did we see you last…?'

'The Merrick wedding, I think,' breezed Sherlock.

'The Merricks, of course,' replied Sybil in the same fake, sing-song voice. 'Poor loves. How was your train journey?'

John watched with faint amusement as the pair exchanged mundane pleasantries. This was the woman who had put them on the case in the first place, and even though there was nobody else at the door, neither she nor Sherlock were prepared to bring the matter up in conversation. All smiles and chatter on the outside, unspoken schemes lurking beneath. John disguised a staccato laugh as a cough.

_Toffs_.

'And this must be John,' Sybil beamed, ushering them both through the front lobby. 'The _Doctor_! We've heard all about _you_.'

'You have?' John blinked at Sherlock, who caught his eye and gave him a faint shrug of feigned innocence. John thought back again to the postcard received from Sherlock's mother when she had holidayed in Tunisia – addressed to her 'dear John & Sherlock'. Suddenly, John felt a new sense of dread about the approach of Christmas.

'It's mostly us old folk tonight I'm afraid,' said Sybil, guiding them through, but my daughter and her husband's family should be arriving soon.' She stopped at a desk at the end of the lobby and rooted through a drawer. 'You're in room 7, if you wanted to get settled in first.' She pulled a key from the drawer and handed it to Sherlock. 'Top floor. The Do starts at 8. In the function room…'

She was cut off by another knock at the door.

'Do excuse me. Make yourselves comfortable.'

Sherlock smiled brightly at John and jingled the key at him as Sybil left to attend to the newcomers. 'Gives us just under an hour to freshen up. I still smell of Train. Let's take a look at our room.'

John followed, lugging the suitcase with all the recording equipment as Sherlock climbed the stairs lightly.

'I've never been to a house with a function room before,' said John as he struggled. 'Or numbered bedrooms. Anyone would think this was a hotel.'

Sherlock stopped to wait for John to catch up. 'That's because it is. Well – a B&B with a Wedding license, technically. Times are hard.'

John finally caught up with Sherlock. Any hope he might have had of his friend offering to carry the heavy case up the last flight of stairs dissipated as Sherlock turned and started springing up the steps again.

'Even for toffs.'

-x-

'Well,' said John, 'gazing at Room 7, 'this is… cozy.'

'It's perfect,' smiled Sherlock. 'Victor and Cynthia will be in room 6…' he pointed at the left wall. 'Rupert and Grace in room 8.' He pointed right, then went to inspect the small window.

'Perfect?' John repeated, incredulously. 'There's only one bed!'

'What does the bed matter?' asked Sherlock, taking off his jacket. 'You weren't intending on sleeping tonight, were you?' He threw the jacket onto the bed and started to remove his shoes and socks. 'Thin partition walls,' he added, now unbuckling his belt. 'This all used to be the Fairchilds' attic, they had it converted into three rooms ten years ago.' He pulled off his trousers and threw them on the bed as well. 'Whatever goes on in this room's going to be pretty audible to the parties either side of us.' He pulled a pair of tatty old trousers and a thin black jumper from his overnight bag. 'We can actually work this to our advantage, though,' he added, putting the new clothes on, 'if you can do enough clonking around for the two of us tonight, it'll provide an adequate distraction.'

'Sherlock,' sighed John as he checked the surveillance equipment, 'what on Earth are you doing?'

Sherlock opened the little window. 'Dry run. Half a mo. Stick the kettle on.'

And with that, Sherlock pulled himself through the window's narrow opening and onto the roof, and disappeared.

John rolled his eyes as he located the room's limited tea making facilities.

'It's like keeping a cat, sometimes,' he said to himself. 'A six foot tall, psychotic cat that smells of oranges and burning. And won't eat its Wiskas.'

There was a knock at the door. John hurried to cover up all the surveillance gear and cautiously went to open it.

'Bergamot,' said Sherlock, standing in the doorway.

'What?'

'My shampoo. Extract of bergamot. Not orange. And the burning smell comes with the job.'

'How did you… what?'

'I very much doubt that we'll get anything useful out of those ridiculous recording devices,' Sherlock replied. 'This is a 65th Birthday party. I haven't seen Rupert since school – what does Mycroft expect me to say to him to get him to unwittingly incriminate himself – "Hi Rupert, long time no see, speaking of which, how's Al Qaida keeping these days?" No – what we need to do is get hold of his laptop. How long did it take me to get into his room via the roof and out again?'

John shrugged. 'Thirty seconds? Less than a minute, certainly.'

'Good. And you didn't hear anything?'

John shook his head. 'You heard me, though.'

'I was right about the walls. Obviously.' He held out two wrapped teabags. 'They've got Darjeeling in room 8. What have we got?'

'PG Tips.'

Sherlock frowned. 'I'm going to have to have words with Mrs Fairchild about that.' He started changing again.

'Speaking of which,' added John, 'if I can return your attention to the bed…'

'Hmm?'

'Two single blokes,' prompted John, 'one double bed… and after what Sybil said about me… what exactly has your mother been telling her friends about me and you?'

'You and I,' corrected Sherlock. 'And I'm sure I've no idea what mother's got into her head about our arrangements.'

'Well,' retorted John, 'I'm sure _I_ do.'

'It doesn't exactly matter though, does it?'

'It matters to me.'

'So the idea some people might think we're an item – you don't find that flattering in the slightest?'

'Not really.' John paused. 'Why – do you?'

'As I say,' replied Sherlock, getting back into his formal wear, 'it doesn't matter.'

-x-

A little after eight, they left their room in search of the party. The dull thud of a bass line guided them towards a function hall at the back of the house.

John smiled faintly. 'They've got a disco!'

'Yes,' muttered Sherlock in distaste. 'How quaint.'

Sherlock had gone beyond appearing vaguely nervous and was just looking plain uncomfortable. John could tell that he hated wearing the wire – John himself wasn't keen on the earpiece he'd had to disguise as a hearing aid. He wondered why Sherlock was still going through with using the stuff if he thought it was such a useless idea. The only possible reason he could think of was that it was to placate Mycroft, but that was far from being in keeping with Sherlock's usual antagonism towards his brother. There was something wrong about this whole scenario… something wrong about Sherlock's reactions to it, anyway, and John still couldn't put his finger on it.

An elderly man, his face full of bristles, met them as they approached the function room.

'Who's this?' barked the old man. 'Haven't seen these ones before.'

Before either Sherlock or John could draw breath to reply, Sybil wafted to the old man's side, bringing a sharp looking woman in her 30s along with her.

'This is Sherlock, Daddy,' Sybil told the old man. 'He's representing the Holmeses tonight…'

'Ah!' The old man's face lit up in wonder and delight. He grabbed Sherlock's hand and pumped it, enthusiastically. 'Of course! The man from the MOD. What an honour…'

'Daddy,' said Sybil, gently, 'you're thinking of Mycroft Holmes.'

'Sherlock's the Other One,' added the sharp, younger woman.

'Oh,' said the elderly man, the disappointment his tone utterly unchecked. 'The Other One. Yes.' He let go of Sherlock's hand. 'Work for Scotland Yard these days, don't you?'

'_With_ them,' corrected John, quietly.

'If they ask me very, very politely,' added Sherlock with a fake smile. He turned his attention to the younger woman. 'Grace. How are you?'

'Very well, thank you,' Grace told him. And by God, as cold and detached as Sherlock's tone of voice often seemed to John, it was nothing compared to the cool contempt displayed in Grace Fairchild-Trevor's intonation. 'How nice of you to come.'

'My pleasure.'

Grace turned her gaze to John. 'And this is…?'

'John Watson,' John told her.

'_Doctor_ John Watson,' added Sherlock, over him. 'My flatmate.'

'Ohhh,' replied Grace. 'The _Doctor_. Of course.'

John snuck another accusatory glance at Sherlock.

'Why don't you go and get Sherlock and John mingling with the other youngsters, Grace?' Sybil suggested. 'Daddy, let's get you sat down. Your poor legs!'

'Come on,' Grace ordered. 'Kid's Table's over this way.'

She led them into the darkened function room, towards a table in the corner where three people were already seated. As they walked away, John could hear the elderly man mutter something about "those rumours being true after all". It was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

It's Complicated

-x-

Two

-x-

There were three people already sat at the 'Kid's Table'. John had learned enough from Sherlock over the past months to be able to tell who was who. Cynthia was obvious, but she was sitting between the two men, and had her arm around neither. Both men were wearing wedding bands. But one of the brothers was tall and toned and broke into a slick, confident grin as they approached. The other was stockier, with a once well muscled, Rugby Player physique that had since gone to seed somewhat, and hair closely cropped to make his Male Pattern Baldness less obvious. If John were a woman, which would he be tempted away from which by? The tall brother was Rupert, the brother with the shaved head had to be Victor. Besides which, the stockier brother wore a faintly worried expression. He looked like a man who knew that something was amiss. Did Victor suspect that his wife was having an affair, John wondered.

The taller brother got to his feet, still grinning, as they reached the table.

'Bloody Hell,' he smiled. 'Dracula!' He extended a hand towards Sherlock. 'Christ, haven't seen you since school.'

Sherlock shook the man's hand. 'Good to see you again, Rupert.'

John would have congratulated himself on getting who was who right had it not been a 50/50 chance in the first place, and had the casual use of the hitherto unheard-of nickname "Dracula" not thrown him. Sherlock indulging Cynthia in an air-kiss greeting threw him further still, although that was more due to him having to suppress a giggle at his friend's expense. He was so distracted by these factors that he almost missed the strangest detail yet – a subtle movement of Sherlock's hand just before he shook Victor's – he wiped his palm on the side of his trousers. Just once.

John had never known Sherlock to get clammy palms before. In fact, if he didn't know that it was a medical impossibility, he'd say that his friend didn't sweat whatsoever. The thought struck him again – _he's nervous. Why the Hell is he nervous?_

'Victor,' greeted Sherlock, politely.

'Sherlock,' came the reply; just as courteous, just as curt.

'So, I hear you're a Private Dick these days, Drac,' continued Rupert, cheerfully.

'Consulting Detective,' Sherlock corrected him. 'Private Investigators tend to spend most of their professional lives uncovering adulterous relationships…'

'Ah,' brayed Rupert. 'I 'ope zat eezent why you 'ave gazzered uz all eento zees room.'

Cynthia giggled. Even Victor twisted a smile. Sherlock just gazed blankly at them, then at John.

'Poirot,' helped John. Sherlock still looked nonplussed.

'Just a joke, Drac,' added Rupert. 'Don't worry, we all know you're off duty tonight.'

'Oh,' replied Sherlock. There was a brief, awkward pause.

'Who's your friend?' asked Victor.

'John Watson,' replied John, as Sherlock said 'my flatmate' over him.

'This is The Doctor', added Grace, over both of them.

'Oh!' Rupert seemed a little taken aback at this. 'In the flesh. I never thought I'd see the day. He shook John's hand. 'Hello, Doctor John Watson'.

John had by now gone beyond baulking at everybody at this damned party apparently having "heard all about him" already. Frankly, he was more perturbed by Victor's reaction than Rupert's or Cynthia's. He watched out the corner of his eye as Victor silently gave him the once-over, then looked at Sherlock. Victor and Sherlock exchanged glances for a moment and then both looked away at the same time. After less than a second. Why would somebody do that, unless they were embarrassed? John frowned, faintly. He was sure that the words 'Sherlock' and 'embarrassment' should only be used in the same sentence if the words in between were 'is an'.

There was something very wrong about this evening. Very wrong indeed.

-x-

Between Sherlock mingling and pretending to be amused by Rupert's anecdotes – none of which, obviously, made any reference to certain Overseas Dealings – and John being told that people he'd never heard of had "heard all about him", it was over an hour before John found himself able to catch his friend alone. He could hear Sherlock all the while – or at least his occasional grunts and hums as people talked at him – on his earpiece, the only result being that John now got to hear two lots of inane chit-chat at a time instead of just one. Sherlock was at the bar, buying a round when he finally got a moment with him. John had watched in amusement as Sherlock had repeatedly "accidentally" put down a full pint and picked up somebody else's emptier one. Nobody had exactly complained, and it made it look as though the detective was drinking as much as everybody else. Still, he had had to drink the lager occasionally, for appearance's sake. He handed two pints to Cynthia as she passed. She clinked glasses with him and with a 'Cheers, Drac,' took a swig, meaning Sherlock had to smile and drink too. As she went back to the table and John approached him, he saw Sherlock swallow with a grimace of distaste.

'How's the lager?'

Sherlock stuck out his tongue like a small child eating broccoli. 'It's how I imagine Milton Keynes must taste. But Rupert's suspicious that either Victor or Grace has hired me to prove he's having an affair. Going to make things difficult if he's watching me all the time. Not joining in with the alcoholism's just going to make that worse.'

John settled himself at the bar with his own orange juice, and gave his friend a wry smile. '"Dracula"…?'

'Actually one of the fonder nicknames I had at school,' Sherlock told him. 'It's their way of being friendly, if you can believe that.'

'Suits you.'

Sherlock ignored him.

'You would not believe all the people who know all about me,' added John. 'Funny, that.' He paused. Still no reaction from Sherlock. 'Funny, since these are your family friends, but nobody here seems to know much about what _you_ do.'

'Well, isn't that for the best, in this circumstance?' Sherlock asked. 'More discreet. Nobody suspects why it is we're here.'

'In _this_ circumstance, maybe,' John replied, 'but Sherlock, you're brilliant. And, if you don't mind me saying so, you're not exactly modest about it. How can you possibly be OK with family friends thinking you're just an ordinary copper and your childhood peers believing you're some seedy Private Eye?'

'They're all in the past,' Sherlock replied. 'All these people. They pay little attention to me these days and I pay little attention to them. They're irrelevant.'

John watched his expression. 'Yeah, but they're not though, are they?'

Sherlock snapped an annoyed glance at him. 'Don't try to read me, John. You'll only embarrass yourself.' He huffed, and pushed himself away from the bar. 'I've got to go.'

'Go? Go where?' John lowered his voice to a hiss. 'You're not leaving me alone here!'

'Well, I'm not taking you with me to the toilet, John.'

'Oh! You're just…'

'Yes.'

'So when you said you had to go…'

Sherlock rolled his eyes. '_Yes_.'

'Beer'll do that to you.'

'Can we stop discussing it, now? I'll be back in a minute.'

John waited at the bar as Sherlock disappeared off towards the function room's toilets. It was only as he heard the click of the lock in his earpiece that he realised he was about to have the dubious honour of being an aural interloper on the whole event. He wondered about taking the earpiece out, but decided it would attract too much attention to the device. At that moment, there was a gruff cough through his earpiece.

'Would you mind whistling to yourself or something, John?' muttered Sherlock, sotto voce, over the wire. 'You know I have trouble… releasing pressure if I know somebody's listeni…'

Sherlock broke off suddenly as the sound of a door opening was heard through the earpiece. There were heavy footsteps and a nearby, soft rustle. John shook his head to himself. Sherlock was not a urinals man. He'd have been in a stall. And now a new person had gone into the men's, his friend was blatantly pulling himself up onto the toilet so that his feet didn't show. Hiding in the loo. Very glamourous. Very mature.

John could hear the interloper begin to urinate.

'Delightful, Sherlock,' he muttered to himself.

Then the door opened again and Rupert Trevor announced his entrance with his now all too familiar bray.

'All right Victor, you old tosser! Where the Hell have you been?'

'Nipped out for a fag,' Victor replied.

'Anything to escape the Kids Table, right?' added Rupert.

Victor sighed, audibly. 'Right. I mean, who's idea was it to invite bloody Dracula?'

'My Mother In Law's insistance, I'm afraid,' Rupert replied. 'Got to have an envoy from the Holmeses.' Rupert paused for breath, but not for long enough for his brother to interject. 'Still, bit of a turn up for the old books, eh? This Doctor being real after all. Means I owe you twenty sheets, doesn't it?'

'Mm?' muttered Victor. 'I never said that Doctor would turn out to be real. _I _was the one who said he was probably made up by his Mummy to stop people asking about why he's still on his own.'

'No, but you were right about Drac being a bender, though. We bet twenty quid on that back in '92, I think.'

Victor grunted a humourless laugh. 'Still not convinced about Doctor Deafaid.'

'Sybil said she'd heard he was out of the army on disability,' said Rupert, 'but she said he had a gammy leg, nothing about being deaf.' Rupert snorted. 'Blind, I'd understand.'

'I don't reckon they're together, you know,' added Victor. 'They never say "boyfriend", you notice that? It's always "friend" or "flatmate". And you look at this Doctor, at his face… he's embarrassed. He's embarrassed to be here. I bet this is the first he's heard about it.'

'You're acting like you don't want my twenty quid.'

'I'm not saying he's not a poof,' Victor replied. 'I'm just saying, _that_ is a Pity Date. Under duress.'

'Wouldn't be surprised,' Rupert added with a laugh as he walked away. 'I mean – Dracula. Even Queers have standards. Who'd want to put his cock in _that_?'

The door swung shut. There was an overly long pause. Victor obviously hadn't left yet. John heard Victor let out a long, slow exhalation, then walk to the door.

After Victor had left, there was yet another awkward pause. After a moment, Sherlock cleared his throat again.

'Yes, well, I think you can probably mark that exchange down as "non-pertinent".'

John just frowned down at their drinks until Sherlock returned.

'You all right?' asked Sherlock as he slid next to him at the bar again. 'You've gone a rather odd colour.'

John stared up at him. Sherlock was completely unfazed by what they'd both just overheard, or at least was putting on a very good act of appearing so.

'These your old childhood pals, are they?' John fumed. 'Didn't you say the Trevors were old friends of the family? And this is how they talk about you?'

Sherlock shrugged, faintly. 'We had a bit of a falling out in our teens.'

'I'm not in the slightest bit surprised,' John told him. 'God – if they're like this now, what must they have been like at school?'

'It really doesn't matter,' Sherlock replied, but lost eye contact with John as he did so, casting his gaze down into his detested lager.

'But, it does,' said John. 'Doesn't it?'

'I _told_ you…'

'I'm not making this up, am I? I'm not going completely mad. You actually care!'

Sherlock just scoffed in reply.

'You do.' John gave a quiet, baffled laugh. 'So much in this world that Sherlock Holmes doesn't care about – so many peoples' feelings, peoples' opinions… but these two dickheads – and they are _monumental_ dickheads – you actually give a damn for once that they hate you… No. It isn't just that they hate you. They pity you. They think you're sad, the deluded idiots. And that's even worse, as far as you're concerned, isn't it?'

'Have you quite finished lecturing me, yet?' Sherlock's tone was definsive, muted.

John softened his voice. 'I'm not lecturing you. I wouldn't mind knowing how it is that that pair of bellends have managed to achieve the unachievable and actually bother you with their moronic opinions.'

Sherlock shook his head down at his drink. 'They don't bother me.'

'You're lying.' John paused. 'They bullied you, didn't they? At school.'

Sherlock barked a staccato, humorless laugh. 'No, they didn't bully me. Rupert's always been Rupert – we've never "got on", as such, but we were amicable enough.'

'And Victor?'

'Victor's a different matter.'

'Tell me about it,' muttered John. 'I knew blokes like him in the army. Quiet enough on the outside, but there's something lurking there. Something really unpleasant. His type are worse than Rupert's, if you ask me…'

'Must you categorise everyone you see?' Sherlock snapped.

'Why not? That's what you do…'

'It's not that simple, John. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the first thing about Victor Trevor.'

'Well then, why don't you tell me?'

'Because it's none of your business!' Sherlock paused, avoiding John's gaze, still. 'He was you.'

'What?'

'He was to the teenaged me, what you are to me now, John. He was my friend. My confidant. We were very close.'

John frowned. That made no sense. John couldn't imagine what sort of fallout could ever cause somebody as close to Sherlock as he was to exhibit the sort of bad feelings that Victor did towards him. Whatever it was would have to be something big.

'So,' asked John, 'what happened?'

-x-

'What happened?' Mycroft asked.

His brother shrugged, with an over rehearsed air of nonchalance. 'It appears that I crashed into a Sycamore tree. Perhaps driving a car isn't as easy as it looks, after all.'

'Don't,' Mycroft warned. He walked around the car, surveying the damage. The thing was a total write-off. For God's sake, Sherlock! 'What did you do with my car?'

'Crashed it.'

'Before that!'

'Drove it?'

Mycroft stalked back to the open driver's window. 'You really want me to do this?'

Sherlock took a drag from his cigarette. 'Give it your best shot.'

Mycroft folded his arms. 'The scratches on the paintwork on the side of the car suggest that you've had at least two scrapes before ploughing into the tree – maybe more. Never mind the fact that the car is facing _towards_ home, not away from it. You didn't just take her for a spin and wrap her round a tree immediately. You've been out. You've probably managed to drive her miles, somehow. You were on your way back when you lost control of the car.'

Sherlock wedged the cigarette between his teeth and began a slow, sarcastic hand-clap.

'Besides which,' added Mycroft, 'the injuries on your face can't have been from the crash. They're too old. The blood has dried. You've been in a fight, or… or something.' Something else caught his eye. Something he should have noticed before. It was only a few spots, but on the cream leather seats it was all too visible.

'There's blood on the back seat,' said Mycroft. 'How does somebody get blood on the _back_ seat when they're driv…' he trailed off, thinking. Sherlock just stared at him, as though daring him to get it right. 'Oh, Sherlock. You took the car to pick a girl up, didn't you?'

Sherlock began to laugh, joylessly.

'Who is she? What did you do to her? You're only 15…'

'I didn't meet a girl,' Sherlock interrupted.

'You didn't?'

'I drove your car to the Trevor's house,' Sherlock told him.

'Victor,' sighed Mycroft, relief washing over him. Sherlock's best friend. His only friend, really. Not the best influence upon his younger brother – a University student should know better than to smoke cannabis with a 15 year old boy in the holidays, but there you had it. The reliable social interaction was good for Sherlock and it kept him out of any real mischief, Mycroft supposed. 'So, how does that explain the battered face and the blood?'

'We had a fight,' Sherlock told him.

'You and Victor?'

Sherlock nodded.

'Why?'

'Because I said I'll tell Cynthia.'

'Tell her what?'

Sherlock took another deep drag from the cigarette and gazed vaguely off into the distance. 'I said I'd tell her that I'd driven to his house, picked him up, taken him to the woods, smoked several joints with him and then allowed him to sodomise me on the back seat of your car.'

Mycroft felt his stomach tighten. 'Sherlock, that's not funny.'

'I know,' I know,' sighed Sherlock, theatrically. 'Cream leather upholstery. Whatever will get those tricky stains out…?'

'Sherlock, you're 15.'

'As you keep mentioning.'

'It's illegal.'

'So's 19.'

'You're a _child_!'

Sherlock shook his head, taking another drag. 'No. Haven't been one of those for a very long time.'

Yes, wasn't that what they always said, thought Mycroft as he pushed his hand through the open window and unlocked the driver's side door – "15 going on 50, 14 going on 40, 13 going on 30" and so on. Pretend the abused child is an adult on the inside to make it more palatable.

He opened the door. 'Get out.'

'Why?'

'So that I can see what sort of state you've been left in.'

'It's none of your business.'

'You made it my business, Sherlock! You told me!'

'Only so you wouldn't have the satisfaction of working it out for yourself.'

'You used _my_ car and then smashed it to pieces. Attention seeking. You obviously wanted me to know about this…'

'Don't try to read me, Mycroft,' Sherlock snapped.

Mycroft rubbed his face in despair. He knew better than to try to psychoanalyse his brother if he didn't want Sherlock to clam up completely for days on end. Stick to practicalities, for now.

'Are you still bleeding?' he asked.

Sherlock nodded, taking another puff. 'Not much, though.'

'You could still need sutures.'

'Don't be such a Drama Queen. It's fine. I just want to go home.'

'You're going to hospital.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Of course you're going to hospital!' Mycroft hoped that Sherlock had been wearing a seatbelt when he'd crashed the car and had taken it off afterwards for show. Whatever the reason was, the boy wasn't wearing one now. He grabbed his brother's forearm and pulled him out of the car. Christ. He hadn't been lying. There probably wasn't enough blood to warrant the added pain and indignity of stitches, but any blood at all was too much.

'Tell me you used protection.'

Sherlock's eyes widened in a mockery of virginal innocence. 'Might I get pregnant?'

'AIDS, you stupid bloody idiot!' Mycroft shook his brother by the forearm that he still gripped. 'AIDS, Hepatitis…'

'And where would he have caught something like that?' Sherlock asked, incredulously. 'Off Cynthia? Please.'

'I've heard enough.' Mycroft leaned into the car and grabbed the car phone. Despite the crash, that at least was still working.

'Who are you phoning?'

'I'm phoning the police, Sherlock.'

'Why? You don't need to do that.'

'Look at yourself! Victor's an adult and you're a child. He isn't going to get away with this just because he's shown you friendship in the past…'

And then, Sherlock did something very surprising. Something that was actually enough to make Mycroft stop, and put the phone back down.

He said 'Please, Mycroft'. His tone was genuine, his expression one almost of embarrassment. 'Please, don't. It isn't what you think. I made a mistake, all right? Clever, clever, Sherlock made a mistake, and now I don't want questions about it from the Hospital staff, and certainly not from the Police – I just want it to go away.'

That's when Mycroft realised. Maybe it was the way Sherlock had just spoken to him. Maybe it was the look in the boy's eyes, but suddenly he realised something that made everything make sense.

_Oh, Sherlock,_ he thought in dismay, _you're in love with him, haven't you? Oh, you poor, stupid boy._


	3. Chapter 3

It's Complicated

-x-

Three

-x-

'Nothing happened,' Sherlock told John. 'Nothing that's any of your concern, anyhow.'

'But…'

'It's in the past,' Sherlock snapped, quietly. 'It's irrelevant. So let's stop concentrating on that and pay a little more attention to the task ahead of us, shall we?'

John sighed. 'Right. Right…'

'I've been talking to you for far too long,' noted Sherlock under his breath. 'I'm supposed to be delighted to see these people again.' He squared his shoulders. 'Back into the fray. I'm off to mingle.'

'Good luck,' John told him.

But Sherlock was already gone.

-x-

After half an hour of chatter, John became suddenly aware that everything in his earpiece had gone very quiet. He tried tapping the device, but nothing happened. He darted off into the toilets to try taking it out and inspecting it. Just before he removed the earpiece, though, he found he was able to hear quieter, more subtle sounds thanks to the relative peace of the Gents'.

There was the rustle of leaves in the wind. Sherlock, it seemed, had gone outside. Then came a familiar suck-and-sigh, and John rolled his eyes in irritation.

He was having a crafty fag. After dragging John all this way and making him work a room of strangers all night, and after sending him out at all hours for Nicorette patches over the months they'd been living together. John _knew_ he'd been having the occasional ciggie on the sly, he just knew it.

Well. He wasn't in the mood for putting up with it tonight. He strode out of the toilets and through the function room. He quickly spotted Sherlock through a window, sitting next to the shrubbery in the gardens at the back. Sherlock was indeed halfway through a cigarette, staring blankly off into the dark garden. John was just about to locate a door so that he could fling the offending cigarette into the ornamental Koi pond when something directly in front of Sherlock that John couldn't see caught his friend's attention.

'All right?' muttered a voice over John's earpiece. He recognised that voice straight away. Victor Trevor.

'Evening,' relied Sherlock in a similarly muted tone.

Victor kept his distance as he lit up a cigarette of his own.

'Bad habits,' added Victor, stiltedly. 'Difficult to break.'

'I'm supposed to be quitting,' Sherlock replied.

'So should I,' said Victor. 'It's very bad for us.' They locked gazes for a moment, and John was struck by how sad Sherlock's expression looked, bathed in the light from the doorway beyond.

Victor snorted a little laugh, breaking the spell. 'Might stunt our growth.' He indicated to his own large frame, with a second gesture that seemed to reference Sherlock's height.

There was an awkward pause, and the solemn stillness fell over the two men in the garden again. There was something there – some atmosphere, some sort of charge between them, and John didn't like it one bit.

Because he understood, now. He'd worked it out. Bullying, name calling, violence, even… Sherlock shrugged things like that off every day. Victor hadn't bullied him – what had happened between them had been something that John was almost certain that Sherlock simply didn't have it in him to cope with.

They'd been lovers.

Victor took a step towards Sherlock, as though reading John's thoughts somehow and taking it upon himself to prove his theory. 'Look at you,' said Victor, softly.

Sherlock's reaction was as though his seat had suddenly had an electric current passed through it. He sprang to his feet, throwing the remains of his cigarette to the ground.

'Sherlock.' With the same quiet tone, Victor put a burly hand around Sherlock's arm, forcing him to a stop. 'I know he's just your flatmate, you know.'

Without another word, Sherlock shrugged out of the other man's grasp and walked back inside.

John frowned to himself, thinking. Then he searched his pockets, found a biro, scribbled a note on a napkin and handed it to the DJ of the little Hired Disco thumping 'Tiger Feet' out in the corner of the Function Room. Then he went to look for Sherlock and ended up bumping into him in the doorway.

'You all right, Mate?'

Sherlock barely looked at John at all, making a show of scanning the room.

'I take it you got all of that exchange, too. I did notice you at the window, even if Victor didn't.'

'He was your boyfriend,' John told Sherlock, quietly, 'wasn't he?'

Sherlock finally met eyes with John, and gave him a brief, cold, joyless smile.

'Wrong again. He was a boy, he was my friend. There was no romantic relationship there.'

'Doesn't mean you weren't crazy about each other.' John paused, watching Sherlock's frown. 'I'm not the idiot you like to make out I am, Sherlock. I'm a man of the world. I know what it means when people look at each other the way the pair of you just did out there.'

'Well, you're wrong,' Sherlock insisted. He made another glance around the room; this time, it seemed, to ensure that nobody was close enough to hear their voices over the sound of the disco. 'He never loved me. I was very young. Fifteen. Young enough not to have yet conditioned myself out of the unbearable hormonal weakness of sexual yearning.'

'So, you _did_…'

'Yes, John. I'll print you out a little certificate when we get home – "John Watson worked something out about the enigma that is Sherlock Holmes' sexual history". Happy now?'

Sherlock tried to push past him.

'It wasn't just an unrequited little crush though, was it?' John asked. 'You mentioned a falling-out in your teens. Something happened. I _know_ something happened. I can see it in your face.'

Sherlock turned back to John. 'Fine.' He lowered his voice to a conspirital tone. 'I kissed him. We were both high as kites, we'd had a wonderful evening laughing and singing Gilbert & Sullivan at the tops of our voices, and I wanted it to end perfectly, so I kissed him. And imagine my joy when he kissed back. And, as one thing led to another, I was hardly going to stop him, was I? I was hardly going to remind him that we were supposed to be best friends, or that he had a fiancée. I was young and naïve and I thought I was winning him over. But I wasn't.' Sherlock gave John another unhappy, tight smile. 'As turned out, I was an Experiment.'

'Oh, mate,' sighed John. 'Jesus. My getting dumped by Michelle Harrison in front of the whole Student's Union Bar suddenly doesn't seem so bad any more.' He paused, thinking. 'Mind you, that's not the whole story though, is it?'

Sherlock just frowned at him.

'I mean,' continued John, 'you _are_ aware that he fancies the pants off you, aren't you?'

Sherlock stared at him for a second, then shook his head with a snort. 'Don't try to make me feel better by feeding me nonsense.'

'You can't possibly think that's nonsense,' replied John with an incredulous smile. 'Were you asleep when he came on to you in the garden just now?'

'He did not…'

'Please. You know I saw _and_ heard it all. There was more repressed yearning there than the whole Merchant Ivory back catalogue.'

Sherlock gave John a withering look. 'You also overheard Victor's conversation with Rupert…'

'Where Victor insisted you were Gay and single?' asked John. 'That your Mum had made up our relationship and I was embarrassed even to seen here with you? Yes, I did. Seemed like wishful thinking on his part to me.'

'No it isn't.' retorted Sherlock. 'You can't call it wishful thinking when it's all true.'

The song that the DJ was playing had started to come to an end. With a gesture that was part friendly-pat-on-the-back and part parental-nudge, John made to usher Sherlock back into the function room.

'It's not all true,' John replied. 'I'm not embarrassed.'

Another withering look.

'All right,' he admitted, 'I'm a little bit embarrassed, but that's down to the situation. Not because of you. Jesus – who'd be embarrassed to be seen with you?'

Sherlock's expression didn't alter.

The song was fading out. John grabbed Sherlock and practically mandhandled him into the function room. 'All right. I'll prove it. About me _and_ Victor Bloody Trevor.'

'What on Earth are you doing, you strange little man?'

John held up a finger for Sherlock to wait and listen. Tiger Feet faded out completely…

…and The Macarena came on. An odd mix of confusion and contempt, with more than a smattering of wariness etched itself over Sherlock's face. John sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

'If this were a movie, that would have worked.'

'What would have worked?'

John gave the DJ a wave and a pointed glare. The DJ blinked, 'mouthed 'oh, yeah' and cut the Macarena off suddenly, leaving a grand total of no people sighing in disappointment. Sherlock, either tiring of the distraction or unappreciative of the sudden focus on John and he, being the only two people on the dancefloor as the music scratched into silence, tried to make a hasty exit, but barely took a step away from John when Victor Trevor walked back in, stopping in the doorway, watching Sherlock, and whether intentionally or not, blocking his escape.

'And we've got a special request here,' announced the DJ. '"For the most incredible man I ever met", from "The Famous Doctor Watson".'

John wasn't sure how many old ladies sighed 'Aaahhhhh' at that announcement. Sherlock could have told him. It was at least half a dozen.

'What?' asked Sherlock through gritted teeth, freezing his lips so that no one could read them.

John took his hands. 'Trust me,' he muttered as quietly as possible. 'This worked a treat with Karen Baker at the 6th Form disco.'

'_What_?' reiterated Sherlock.

'Just… trust me?'

'Always.'

'Then shut up and dance.'

After a moment's fumbling to find the right record, the DJ finally started the song. John pulled Sherlock to him as convincingly as he could and began the awkward swaying that he'd stuck with for many a Slow Dance over the years. Sherlock pulled a face at the first line of the song.

'"Hold on, little girl"?' he echoed, indignantly.

John gave a little shrug, wincing apologetically. 'It was perfect at the 6th Form Dance. Couldn't think of any other song to use tonight off the top of my head. The chorus should work, though.'

'If this is all to convince the party that we are the couple that my mother says we are…'

'It's not about your mother. It's about you. I'm not embarrassed, Sherlock. Look at me, not being embarrassed to be seen like this with you. If anything, it's flattering. Bloke like me? With a bloke like you? I mean…'

John trailed off. There was that look on Sherlock's face again – the look from the restaurant, just after they'd moved in together, when they'd had that little misunderstanding.

'Listen, John. I know I said that Victor was my adolescent self's version of you, and that my feelings for him evolved into something other than those of friendship, but please don't think that I meant… because these days… I mean, ever since then…'

'I know, I know. Even if I was – which I'm not – I know. Married to your work, although that clearly isn't the whole story regarding that, bearing in mind you were taken advantage of and had your heart broken when you were still just a kid…'

'I wasn't taken advantage of. I threw myself at him.'

'You were 15.'

'That's old enough.'

'Law says otherwise. What was he – 18…?'

'19.'

John just shook his head.

'So, _did_ it "work" with Karen Baker?' asked Sherlock, after a moment.

'What do you mean?'

'Were you "the next to be with her"?'

John laughed a little and shook his head, again. 'No. I was just a good mate. I was "good mates" with a lot of girls back then.

'Your tone implies that that was an unsatisfactory situation for you,' Sherlock noted. 'Don't you think that maybe… it's better to be a "good mate"? That maybe that's more special than…'

It was Sherlock's turn to trail off.

'I do,' John replied. 'Now. Not so much when I was 17, though. Still, she did appreciate that look on her ex boyfriend's face at this routine.' He cast a sly side glance at the door. 'Speaking of which…'

Victor Trevor was watching them intently, but clearly didn't find the scene as enchanting as all the cooing old ladies did. His face was a picture of bitter envy.

'See?' asked John.

Sherlock's gaze darted to the window opposite the door – he could see Victor's expression perfectly well in the reflection… and more besides, it seemed.

'I do see,' replied Sherlock. 'John, you're a genius.'

'No,' muttered John, embedding that rare compliment as firmly into his long term memory as he possibly could. 'Not like… I mean… really?'

'Not really,' said Sherlock, jerking his head faintly towards the "kids table", 'but the effect is much the same as it had been if you'd been clever enough to have planned it this way.'

John looked at Cynthia and Rupert as surreptitiously as he could. Cynthia and Rupert weren't watching them dance. Rupert was watching Cynthia concern while Cynthia was watching Victor, watching them. And Victor really wasn't watching Sherlock and John's dance particularly subtly.

'Cynthia knew, back then. She wasn't stupid – she worked it out.' Sherlock added in a low tone. 'Just because _she's_ having an affair doesn't mean she's automatically going to be happy for her husband to show feelings for somebody else, let alone another man, and in public, too. How humiliating.'

'Cynthia gets upset, storms off,' John murmured, playing out the scene in his head, 'Rupert hurries after her, possibly spends a while "comforting" her, seeing as how Victor's so distracted by you, and we grab his laptop in the confusion…?'

'He'll probably sling it to the bar staff to keep it safe if he's in a hurry,' added Sherlock. 'They've seen us chatting cheerfully with the Trevors all night, buying them rounds – if I say Rupert's asked me to grab his laptop back for him, they're likely to believe I'm just running an errand for a good mate.'

The song was starting to come to an end.

'We've only got a few more bars to make her leave,' said John.

'Desperate times,' muttered Sherlock, closing his eyes and tilting his head down a little.

It was the sort of kiss John used to give his mum when he was little – closed mouthed but not in the slightest bit awkward, devoid of sex but full of fondness. John closed his eyes into it too for a moment, opening them again when he heard the scrape of two chairs. Cynthia hurried out of the function room, followed closely by Rupert, after he had given his laptop to a barmaid to keep hold of. They both pushed right past Victor, still standing less than a foot from the door. He didn't so much as notice. He was still watching Sherlock the way John had seen Harry watch people drink wine back when she'd tried to go on the wagon.

Various old ladies broke into applause at the end of the song.

Sherlock stayed pressed close to John, for appearance's sake in part, but also so that he could murmur 'Victor's attention will be on me. You get the laptop, I'll meet you upstairs' into John's ear.

It was as easy to get the laptop off the bar staff as Sherlock had suggested. John hurried upstairs with it, aware that they had little time in which to copy all of its files onto a replica laptop so that the original could be sent to recover whatever emails and documents Rupert Trevor had thought he'd erased. He noticed as he walked as speedily as he could without drawing attention to himself out of the function room that neither Sherlock nor Victor were anywhere to be seen. Well. Good, John supposed. Victor was the only one still about who would notice that the laptop John had picked up wasn't his. Sherlock had probably drawn him off somewhere. And, for pity's sake, Sherlock faced more troublesome adversaries every day than some paunchy toff that he'd had a crush on once as a kid. John was certain that he could take care of himself.

-x-

'I can take care of myself, you know.'

Sherlock was still standing by the car door, sullenly lighting up yet another cigarette.

'Clearly,' Mycroft called back to him, 'that couldn't be further from the truth.' He went back to rooting through the boot of their mother's Land Rover. Thankfully, she still had her art equipment in the car from going landscape painting on Good Friday.

'Going to paint a picture?' Sherlock asked.

Mycroft finally found what he was looking for and held it aloft. 'White spirit.' He started walking back towards the smashed Mercedes. 'You've written off my car, Sherlock. I can explain a silly boy deciding that he can drive the thing like a grown up and ploughing it into a sycamore tree easily enough. Blood on the back seat's a little harder to explain to the insurance people. You said you didn't want the police to become involved. I'm making sure that they don't.'

Mycroft held the white spirit and rag out for Sherlock. Sherlock pointedly ignored it. Refused to so much as look at the back seat.

'Fine,' sighed Mycroft. He opened the back door of the Mercedes and started carefully spot-cleaning the blood off himself.

Sherlock just smoked and looked off into the distance, as though Mycroft's activity was boring him to tears. Perhaps it was.

'So, you're Gay,' said Mycroft as he cleaned. 'I have to admit, I'd have preferred a more traditional Coming Out Party.'

Sherlock shook his head, his eyes still focused on the treeline. 'Not Homosexual. Nothing as simple as that.' He took another drag. 'I think I might have been a Victorsexual, but I'm starting to accept that that might be up for revision.'

There was another silence. Still, Mycroft cleaned.

'I know you crashed the car on purpose, you know,' added Mycroft. 'You made it all the way to the Trevors', then all the way out to wherever it was that this happened to you, then drove him home, then got yourself a few hundred yards from your own home with only a couple of scrapes to the paintwork and _then_ went headlong into a tree? Unlikely.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'Mea culpa. I was angry. I wanted to break something. And you're right – I knew you'd come running looking for your precious car. I fancied the attention.'

'You could have killed yourself, you know that?'

'Yes. I know.'

Mycroft stopped, and looked up at his brother. 'Sherlock? Is that what you were trying to do?'

Sherlock managed a thin, bitter smile. 'Not sure. Pretty half hearted attempt if it was.'

Mycroft wanted to shake his brother again – shake out of him whatever wretched seed that had been planted in his mind that his life could possibly be worth giving up if it couldn't be with Victor Bloody Trevor of all people. Better yet, he wanted to shake Victor Trevor. He wanted to do a lot worse than shake Victor Trevor. Instead, he set his face resolutely, the way their father always used to do when a matter was not up for debate.

'You're not going to see Victor any more.'

'Don't worry,' snorted his brother. 'Victor made the same sentiment very clear to me.'

'I'm not talking about what's in Victor's interests! I'm talking about what's best for you. No matter what Victor says – no matter if he calls you, says he's changed his mind, says he's leaving Cynthia, you're not to see him.'

'Why on earth not?'

'Because you'd clearly do anything for him,' Mycroft replied. 'And, that is clearly a very dangerous position for you to find yourself in.'

'You're being over dramatic again,' grumbled Sherlock.

"Over dramatic". From a boy who'd just celebrated the loss of his virginity by slamming his car into a tree.

'Answer me honestly,' said Mycroft. 'If he got back in touch with you again, told you he wanted to relive last night – recklessly hurt and degrade you again for whatever reasons it was the he had a few hours ago, and leave you in an even worse state than you're in right now - you'd let him. Wouldn't you?'

-x-

40 seconds. 50. 60. How long would John need? He'd probably got the laptop by now, give him time to get out of the function room and safely up to their bedroom without being spotted.

Victor was still following him. The odd shadow falling past him from behind, not the sound of footsteps so much as that prickly sensation in the back of one's neck that one got when being watched and followed with intent.

70 seconds. 80. Enough time for John, surely.

He'd come to the billiards room. A dead end, and empty with the lights switched off, at that. Victor was still behind him. Fine. He'd just pretend he'd been looking for the stairs up to the bedrooms and had got lost, politely but firmly walk past him and that would be the end of it.

He stopped, just inside the darkened room. His hand fell down and his fingers brushed against the sofa.

Leather.

Tactile memories. Leather. Victor's hands. They were rougher in those days, he'd started moisturising them since.

His palms were clammy. Again! This was intolerable. Something would have to be done about it.

He turned, and there was Victor in the doorway, mere centimetres away from him. Blocking the exit, again. Now, was that subconscious or consciously deliberate?

'Hello again, Sherlock.'


	4. Chapter 4

It's Complicated

-x-

Four

-x-

John was just opening the door to Room 7 when he heard Victor's voice over his earpiece.

'Hello again, Sherlock.'

It certainly wasn't just a simple greeting. John could hear shades of anxiety in Victor's voice… but shades of something else, too. A certain aggression, mixed with a slight slurring of his words. Victor had had too much to drink.

It was the booze thickening Victor's voice that made John decide to push ahead with the task in hand rather than run downstairs to help Sherlock out. He'd once witnessed Sherlock talk both of them out of a showdown with a dozen Milwall Supporters in a pub car park, as well as having seen him take on two Bouncers at the same time and still come out relatively unscathed. One middle aged, inebriated man was peanuts to Sherlock.

Still, he decided as he plugged in the first memory stick and started copying files, he'd continue to listen.

Just in case Sherlock needed help.

Which, he was sure he wouldn't.

'Hello again, Victor,' came Sherlock's voice. 'Don't tell me you got lost, too.'

'We're all lost, Sherlock.'

'And you're drunk.'

There was the faint rustle of fabric over the earpiece. It sounded as though Victor had moved a step or so closer to Sherlock. When he spoke again, his voice was certainly louder.

'That dance – the little show of the kiss… whose benefit was that for, Sherlock?'

'John wanted to dance. He put on a request. It would have been very rude of me to have…'

'I _know_ he's just your flatmate. I haven't seen one of his blog entries where he so much as suggests otherw…'

'Oh,' interrupted Sherlock just as John's own eyebrows raised in amused surprise. 'You read John's blog.'

Victor didn't so much as stall. 'A Saturday night alone with a bottle of bourbon and the internet. I've been having a few of those, lately. Pardon me for feeling a little wistful and Googling you. Quite an exhilarating read, this Personal Blog of John H Watson. What a life you lead. Elegance and danger.' Victor lowered his voice to a murmur, although from the volume John could hear it, it was clear that Victor had moved well within Sherlock's personal space. 'I tell you something else, it's a damn sight sexier than Belle Du Jour.'

'You don't say.'

'Belle Du Jour doesn't have as many gunfights or explosions.' Victor paused for a second before continuing. 'And besides… _look_ at you.'

'Victor,' warned Sherlock, 'you're drunk.'

'And I just couldn't help myself thinking,' Victor continued, unabashed, '"God, that could have been me. That could have been me having those incredible adventures with you, if only I hadn't been so bloody stupid".'

'You weren't the one who spoilt the friendship.'

'Who said anything about just being friends?'

'Victor,' warned Sherlock again, but his voice was little more than a whisper now.

John frowned and paused in his work, torn between returning to the downloading and going to break up what was going on down there… did Sherlock even _want_ it to get broken up? John couldn't be sure.

'You were right, Sherlock,' murmured Victor, 'you were so right about everything. I should have left Cynthia that night. She's having an affair, you know. Everything's so… so wretched. She doesn't love me. I don't know if she ever really did. But you? You were beautiful and exciting and so full of passion, and you made me want to do things that I knew I really shouldn't do, and that frightened me. It still does.'

There was the sound of fabric being pushed against something… something textured. Carpet? A curtain? Up in the attic bedroom, John got to his feet, even though he didn't know where Sherlock was or whether he wanted help.

'Aren't you being a little physically overbearing for someone who claims to be frightened of me?'

John decided to take that as a hint that Sherlock wanted him to break up the little tryst. He started heading for the bedroom door. Wherever they were, it was downstairs, at least.

'Tell me to stop, and I will,' replied Victor.

'Victor…' it wasn't said as a warning any more. It was practically a sigh.

John faltered, half way out of the bedroom. A _sigh_? For a tosser like Victor Trevor? Perhaps Sherlock _was_ a genius, but he had a bloody awful taste in men. There was another faint sigh, and a tiny "mmf", followed by the unmistakable sound of saliva between lips, and John's heart sank. This was starting to sound less and less like the sort of thing that Sherlock would thank him for barging in and breaking up. He was a grown man, and fully capable of making his own decisions.

_What,_ said a little voice at the back of his head, _like his decision to play Good Pill Bad Pill Roulette with a Serial Killer?_

Along with the noise that John had to accept was the sound of kissing, even though the thought made his skin crawl, came a quiet 'clink'. He'd heard that sound before. Snooker. The sound of two snooker balls gently coming into contact. He'd noticed a pool room downstairs. Ugh. On a pool table. Very classy. This got better and better.

He carried on down the stairs. As long as Sherlock was around to rescue him from deadly Chinese Circus acts and exploding Parkas, John would continue being around to rescue Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock Holmes. Whether Sherlock liked it or not.

After a few steps, John heard Victor's voice again, full of self satisfaction. 'God, I love the way you kiss.'

John grimaced, despite himself.

'Victor,' muttered Sherlock.

'It's so… so _desperate_. I love it. The little noises you make…'

'Victor. There's something I have to tell you.'

'What?'

'Something I suspected for some time, but I've only just had the data I've needed to be able to confirm my hypothesis.'

Victor laughed, softly, smugly. John started taking the stairs two at a time.

'And what are your findings, Genius?' asked Victor.

'I don't want you any more.'

John stopped.

'What?' asked Victor, his voice flat now.

'I don't want you any more,' repeated Sherlock. 'I'm free of you. I thought that that might be the case, but I wanted to know for sure. I don't even really know what it was that I saw in you, but it's gone now.' Sherlock paused. 'You can get off me, now.'

Another pause, and the closeness of Victor's breath even after Sherlock had told him to get off made John start rushing down the stairs again.

'I said,' repeated Sherlock, as calmly as he would had John ignored his request for a cup of tea, 'get off me.'

'No,' replied Victor, anger rising in his voice. 'You're not doing this to me. Not tonight.'

'Let me guess,' said Sherlock, his tone still placid. 'The more you've suspected your wife of infidelity of late – correctly, might I add – the more your thoughts have gone back to that night with me all those years ago. You tell yourself it's because I warned you things wouldn't work out with her, but it's because you can remind yourself that you were unfaithful to her first – you'll always have that up on her. You remember this silly, lonely boy who was infatuated by you and you look him up on the internet…'

'You make it sound like I've only started thinking about you again the past few months,' Victor told him. 'I never stopped thinking about you, Sherlock.'

This seemed to throw Sherlock a little. 'Really?'

'It made things easier when you started cropping up on the internet,' Victor replied, 'but I've always wanted to know how you've been doing… what you've been up to. Because the older you got, the more amazing the stories coming back to me became. I never thought you were a silly boy. I thought you were brilliant, even back then. So you don't know what you saw in me… any idea what it was _I_ saw in _you_? What I still see in you?'

Sherlock didn't answer. John had come to the bottom of the stairs. Where was that bloody pool room?

'I'm not a poof, you know. I don't fancy blokes, at all.'

'Yes, I remember your protestations from before. But as I recall, I didn't really count because "from behind it was just like doing a skinny bitch up the arse".'

'I'd have thought you'd be smart enough to work out that it wasn't that, Sherlock. You're an exception to the rule. Because I'm an exception to yours. I _know_ he's just your flatmate. And I know that little dance was for my benefit. You always did enjoy the art of the pricktease, didn't you? Still do, no doubt.'

'I don't know what you mean.' Sherlock's voice was still calm and neutral.

'I mean, I know you make people want you, and I know you don't let people have you. Except for me. I didn't just fuck this untouchable genius, he begged me to fuck him. I didn't climb up your pedestal; you knocked it down for me.'

'And no matter what Cynthia does, you get to keep that in mind,' concluded Sherlock. 'You were able to have me. Which, by your logic, means you could have anybody you wanted.'

'Bingo.'

'But, you _can't_ have me.'

'Of course I can.'

'No, you really can't, Victor.'

John picked up his pace. He had been sure the pool room had been a left turn after the cloakroom. Or should that have been a right turn after the dining room…?

'Victor,' came that warning voice of Sherlock's again, 'you're causing a scene.'

'Only you and me here, Sherl…'

There was a thud, and Victor gasped in indignant surprise as much as pain. John slowed. He'd found the door to the pool room just as Sherlock had shown himself perfectly capable of handling the situation by himself. If he went in now, he'd probably just get nagged at for abandoning his task with the laptop. John turned back and started making his way towards the stairs once more.

'I think I've made my position on this matter clear,' said Sherlock, 'wouldn't you agree?'

'Not the one I'd hoped for. Not the one I like.'

'Victor, stop embarrassing yourself with this ridiculous aggressive seduction technique. It's tedious.'

'"Aggressive"…?'

There was a second thud, and a third, and these ones sounded different. This time Victor wasn't grunting in pain or shock, but with anger and physical effort. Pool balls clattered on one another. John turned yet again, and started sprinting towards the pool room.

'I thought you _liked_ aggressive,' Victor railed. 'I thought _that_ was your "position". When you're not pressed down in your brother's upholstery so I don't have to look at your face when I…'

John threw open the door to the pool room and was on top of Victor before the man had chance to finish the sentence. For a moment, all John could see of Sherlock were two legs struggling for purchase and a hand outstretched, groping for a makeshift weapon on the billiards table that Victor had just used his greater body weight and two surprise blows to pin him down on. John grabbed the fist that Victor had raised above his head to bring down in the third punch to Sherlock's face and twisted Victor round, pulling him away from the billiard table just as Sherlock swung a billiard ball up towards where Victor's head had just been with such force that the thing flew out of his hand, finding no skull to crack against, and embedded itself into a partition wall some ten feet away.

Victor swung a punch at John with his weaker free hand, but this time it was John who had the element of surprise on his side. Victor was strong, but he was drunk and clumsy. John blocked the swing easily and pushed Victor away, sending the larger man careering into a Snooker table. Sherlock pushed himself up off the Billiards table, a cue clenched in his hand, but didn't strike Victor. It was obvious he wasn't going to try anything on with two of them about. John wasn't sure why he'd expected Sherlock to look more shaken than he did. All that seemed different about his friend was a trickle of blood coming from one nostril and a flash of anger over his face that quickly subsided when he saw that Victor was no longer a physical threat.

'This guy bothering you, Sherlock?' asked John.

Sherlock dropped the cue. 'Not any more.' And, to John's surprise, put his arm around him, staring defiantly at Victor

Victor glared back at them. 'I _know_ you're just his flatmate. He doesn't do love any more. I know what he's like.'

'No, you don't,' replied John. 'You don't know anything. Does it actually warm your soul to think you managed to ruin him for everyone else? Are you really that twisted? Go back to your wife.'

'My wife doesn't want me.'

'Neither does Sherlock.'

Victor screwed up his face, bitterly. 'Tell me, doctor, does he still hum Jerusalem to ward off that panic attack when you cram yourself inside his scrawny ar…'

Another sentence Victor would never get to finish, due to a fist in the face, albeit John's this time.

'Shall we go upstairs, John?' asked Sherlock conversationally as John shook the feeling back into his knuckles. 'I doubt we'll be much missed down here.'

'Delighted,' replied John. He put his arm around Sherlock again, and they left the room together.

By the time they'd reached the foot of the stairs, their arms had untwined and they were both trying their hardest only to laugh quietly.

'Tell me,' said Sherlock, failing miserably at remaining straight-faced, 'are we just going to walk upstairs, or were you planning on throwing me over your noble steed and galloping off into the sunset with me?'

'Frankly, I'm a bit put out that you haven't offered me a dainty handkerchief already,' John giggled. 'Isn't that the usual token for saving a damsel's chastity?'

'I'm perfectly capable of fending off the attentions of drunken, middle aged lawyers, you know.'

'Yes, you looked it, sprawled on the Billards table. And who, exactly, did you suppose would have cleaned up the mess if you had smashed his head in with that ball? Because it wouldn't have been muggins, here.'

'I wasn't about to _kill_ him, John. And your moment of Valour has just cost our efforts to copy across all those files a valuable five minutes.'

'Worth it though, wasn't it?'

Sherlock glared at John. 'Are you really asking whether a moment of personal satisfaction over someone who hurt me twenty years ago was really worth risking this whole delicate case…?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Ah. Because it was.' Sherlock grinned, sharply. 'It really was.'


	5. Chapter 5

It's Complicated

-x

Five

-x-

Mycroft parked up on the street and walked down it until he found the scruffy little terrace that served as Victor's student digs. He knocked, and patiently asked the young man who answered whether Victor was in. 'Tell him it's an old family friend,' said Mycroft, with a smile.

After a moment, Victor came to the door and froze, with a scowl.

'What do you want?'

'May I have a word, Victor?'

Victor huffed. 'In private, I suppose?'

'I think that would be preferable for both of us, wouldn't you?'

Still far from happy with the situation, Victor followed Mycroft away from the little student house and down the street.

'So the man from the MOD's come all the way up to Manchester from London, just to see little old me,' said Victor with a sneer. 'Must be important.'

'From Sussex, actually,' replied Mycroft. 'I've been home for a few days. Again.' He paused, slightly. 'Settling in to your new term, nicely? Studies going well?'

'Very.'

'Be such a pity if all of that hard work was ruined, wouldn't it, Victor? I don't think you'd make it to the bar with a criminal conviction under your belt, do you?'

Victor stopped walking. 'Are you threatening me?'

Mycroft faced him, with a smile. 'I suppose I am. You must be aware quite how easily I could have you charged with sexual offences against my brother…'

'Oh, here we go,' spat Victor. 'What's he been saying about me? I'd like to know exactly what defamation of character it is I'll be counter-suing the Holmeses for.'

'He told me that he approached you at Easter, and that you had sex that he claims was consensual, although the law states otherwise, considering his youth…'

'Age of consent for that sort of thing's 21,' replied Victor. 'I'm still 19. If I'm a pervert, then so is he…'

'He also told me,' continued Mycroft over Victor, 'after much cajoling, at least, that later that week, when I'd returned to London and our mother was out, he received a phone call from you saying that Cynthia knew about Easter, that you and she were breaking up and that you wanted to see him, and that when he did so, you did it to him again.'

'He threw himself at me. I was confused. Cynthia and I were going through a rough patch, to say the least…'

'A _rough_ patch? You think _you_'ve been having a rough time?' Mycroft had to admit, he still had a thing or two to learn about keeping his anger fully in check. He pushed Victor against a wall and leaned in close to him so that no passers-by could hear him. 'You left him bleeding the first time, and in such a state the second time, the nurses couldn't believe it had been consensual. And that's just physically. It would be _so_ easy to pin rape on you. So easy.'

Victor shoved him away. 'Hate to tarnish little Sherlock's halo, Mycroft, but I was actually easier on him than he asked me to be. The kid likes it rough. That's not my fault. I'm sure there was no cause to take him to a _hospital_ over it.'

'You don't…' Mycroft faltered halfway through telling Victor that he didn't understand. But, of course Victor didn't understand. That was the point. And Victor didn't deserve the satisfaction of knowing just what power his whims had over his brother. 'You don't contact Sherlock again. Ever.'

'Agreed,' Victor replied. 'Me and Cynthia have talked things over. We're giving it another go, but part of the conditions is that I keep your little brother away from me.'

'And when things go sour with Cynthia again,' said Mycroft, archly, 'what then? No, you're to stay away from him no matter what. You're not to attend any functions he'll be at, you're not to call, not to write - nothing. And furthermore, nobody else is to "find out" about what happened between the two of you…'

'Cynthia worked it out!'

'I very much doubt she worked _all_ of it out, Victor. You told her some of it, at least.'

'He told you. I think it's fair that I tell somebody, too.'

'You will tell nobody else, Victor,' Mycroft warned. 'Nor shall Cynthia. I'm all too aware that Rupert is still at the same school as Sherlock, and the sort of reputation such stories would bring him is the last thing any boarder needs.' Mycroft took a step closer to Victor again. 'But the potential damage to his reputation and bright future is nothing compared to the damage that could be done to yours.'

'Believe me, Mycroft. You're preaching to the choir, here. I won't breathe a word to him ever again. He's not exactly worth the trouble it'll bring me.' Victor pushed Mycroft away again – more an act of dismissal than one of anger, this time. I don't know why you're going to all this bother to try to make _me_ hush up about it. I'm the one with the most to lose, here.'

Mycroft stared at Victor for a moment before turning and walking back to his car and the long drive back to Sussex. He really did think that, didn't he? He had no idea how much Sherlock stood to lose from this whole miserable affair – or how much he had already lost. Sherlock's supposed best friend honestly didn't understand him at all.

-x-

They worked together in near silence for a while – John copying the files from Rupert's laptop onto memory sticks and Sherlock downloading everything onto the replica, setting it up so that Rupert wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The party was carrying on downstairs and, wherever Rupert, Cynthia and their spouses were, it wasn't in the adjoining attic bedrooms.

It was actually rather repetitive, simple work, and John kept finding his mind drifting back to the encounter with Victor in the Pool room. Punching that oily git right in the mouth.

'What are you smirking at?'

Sherlock's voice snapped him out of it. His friend's attention still seemed utterly focused on the replica laptop.

'I wasn't smirking.'

'Yes, you were. You still are. What's so funny?'

'Nothing.'

There was a brief pause. Sherlock met eyes with John for a split second, then cast his gaze back down at the laptop.

'It's the Jerusalem thing, isn't it?'

'What?' John blinked. 'No, no. It's just… I mean, I assumed he was making the Jerusalem thing up.'

'It's a distraction technique I used sometimes when I was nervous, back when I was a kid, that's all. Before going on stage for school plays – that sort of thing.'

John smiled. 'I don't know what I'm having more trouble picturing – you getting stage-fright or you being in a school play at all.'

Sherlock looked up again. 'You don't think I'm a good actor?'

'You're a brilliant actor, when it suits you.'

Sherlock nodded, and looked down at his work again. 'My Lady Macbeth was a Tour De Force. My Headmaster said it was the best he'd ever seen.'

'_Lady_ Macbeth?'

'Boy's school. I had the legs for it.'

'Oh,' sighed John, deciding to leave the conversation at that. He passed the last memory stick over to Sherlock. 'I think that's everything.'

Sherlock nodded. 'I'll be about another 20 minutes, then you can slip the replica back down to the bar.'

John got up, stretched, then lay down on the bed with his crossword book while he waited for Sherlock to finish.

After less than 5 minutes had passed, John heard heavy footsteps climbing the stairs to the attic rooms. He sat up, startled. Had Rupert found out they had the laptop, already? The whole case could go up in smoke…

His mobile lit up with an incoming text. Thanking his stars that he'd remembered to put the thing on silent, he read the message.

"**It isn't Rupert. It's Victor. SH**"

John smiled with relief, as well as amusement that his friend had still signed off with his initials despite texting him from a table only a few metres away. Indeed, the footsteps took a left at the top of the stairs and walked to Room 6. From the top of the bed, right against the wall that adjoined with Room 6, John heard Victor clearly as he stomped around and dumped a suitcase onto the floor.

'Fuck,' came Victor's voice through the wall, more frustrated now than angry or surprised. Then came the sound of him calling up a number on his mobile.

John picked up his own phone again and texted Sherlock.

"**He knows we're up here, right?**"

Even the sound of Cynthia's voicemail greeting could just about be made out through the wall. Victor swore again, softly.

"**He knows we're in our room,**" came Sherlock's text in reply, "**prob doesn't know that means next door or how thin the walls are**".

'Cynthia,' said Victor, 'where the Hell are you? You're not here, Rupert's not here, Grace is in tears downstairs… I know what's going on, you know. I bloody know. Fuck you, Cynthia.'

He ended the call and kicked what could only have been Room 6's bedpost.

An idea struck John. A pretty evil idea, considering the fact that Victor Trevor's marriage was coming apart, but John's mind just could stop taking him back to the exchange in the Pool room. He'd been so bloody smug – so sure of himself that he'd wrecked the life of the most wonderful man, and that he could grab hold of him, chew him up and spit him out again, as and when it suited him.

Sod it, thought John. He'd heard Victor smugly announce that Sherlock and he could only possibly be flatmates one too many times. He leaned right up against the wall and let out a long, low, appreciative 'Mmmmm.'

Sherlock looked up from his work, nonplussed.

'C'm here,' muttered John, against the wall, and started kissing his hand.

His phone went off again.

"**What on Earth are you doing? SH**"

"**Was in a few school plays myself,**" texted John, still kissing his own wrist and failing to mention to Sherlock that these plays had largely consisted of playing several shepherds in Primary school Nativities; his biggest ever role being that of Sneezy in Snow White, in which he'd had a grand total of 14 lines, half of those being 'A-choo'. "**You're not the only one who can act.**"

His phone lit up again. "**Why?**"

"**Because he thinks he's right about us just being flatmates**"

"**He IS right!**"

John snorted a silent laugh. "**So?" **He laughed again, out loud this time. 'Sherlock, that tickles.'

Sherlock picked up the laptop, got out of his seat and silently moved across to the adjoining wall, pressing his ear up against it. He must have heard something – some breath or muted sigh from the other room – that appealed to his mischievous side, because his face broke into a wicked grin. He sent another quick text.

"**You can be bloody Evil sometimes.**"

"**Thanks**", texted John.

Sherlock put down his phone and got on to the bed next to John, setting the laptop on the bedside table and kneeling right up by the headboard against the wall.

'About tonight,' he murmured, in confessional tones.

'It's OK,' soothed John. 'Used to fighting them off you.'

'You're the only one, John. The only…'

John put a finger on Sherlock's lips, causing the other man to crease up into silent giggles.

'Shhh. I know. I get to keep you. God, I'm the luckiest man in the world.'

'It's nothing to do with luck,' replied Sherlock, starting to kiss his own hand now, as well, issuing tiny, appreciative little grunts with every kiss.

John heard the frustrated groan from the room beyond now too, and decided to step up the fake filth. He pushed two of his fingers into his mouth and said, thickly, 'oh, baby'.

'Ohhhh,' gasped Sherlock, taking John's cue, and rattling the headboard a little. 'Oh, yes. Let me do that for you, too.'

'No,' mumbled John, his mouth full of fingers.

'Please?'

'Nuh-uh.'

Sherlock leaned his face right up against the wall, as much to listen as to make sure he was heard.

'I want you inside me.'

John pulled his fingers out of his mouth. 'Now you're talking.'

'Oh!' Sherlock gave a little cry of surprise. John noticed that he'd started doing the faces to go with the sounds, now.

'Sorry,' muttered John, 'bit cold. That better?'

'Mmm.'

'Turn over,' added John, turning his face away from Sherlock's to keep himself from laughing. 'You know I like to look at you.'

'Mmm,' reiterated Sherlock, before sharply sucking through his teeth.

'It's OK,' muttered John. 'Relax… relax… Oh, that's the spot.'

'Oh, God.' Sherlock started to shake the headboard gently again. 'Oh, yes. Mmm.'

John looked over at Sherlock and saw that, while rocking the bed with one hand, the detective had turned the other hand, as well as most of his attention, back to the laptop. A new, devilish idea took John. 'Sing for me. You know I love it when you sing for me.'

Sherlock slid a glance at John, then went back to the laptop as he started to sing in deliberately shaky, breathless tones.

'Guide me, o Thou great redeemer…'

'Oh, yes,' interjected John, happily picking up his crossword book again.

'Pilgrim in this barren land…'

John grinned, finally getting that answer to 7 Down that had been bothering him. 'In Welsh,' he ordered, rather pleased that they seemed to have come to the unspoken understanding that in this entirely fabricated sexual situation, he would be the one calling the shots for a change.

Sherlock didn't even so much as break tempo. 'Nad oes ynof nerth na bywyd…'

'Yes,' gasped John, rubbing out a mistake he'd made on 18 Across, 'oh fuck, Sherlock, yes!'

'Fel yn gorwedd yn y bedd…' Sherlock stopped rocking the headboard momentarily in order to switch the memory sticks over. 'Don't stop, John,' he called out as he did, 'Oh God, I'm almost there.'

'In _Welsh_,' demanded John, again.

Sherlock faltered for a second, and frowned, and John realised that, while it was understandable that a Public School alumnus with a nigh-on photographic memory would phonetically remember a popular Rugby Song, the likelihood of a London-centric detective having the need to acquire a thorough Welsh vocabulary wasn't all that great. Sherlock blinked and clearly pulled what few Welsh phrases he knew out of the recesses of his memory and shuffled them about in the hope they'd at least sound right.

'Dim parcio, John. Pobol y Cwm. Pobol y Cwm!'

'And no one told you to stop singing,' John reminded him.

Sherlock started rocking the bed and singing again with a new vigour as the new memory stick downloaded. 'Hollalluog, Hollalluog, Y'dyw'r Un a'm cwyd i'r lan! Y'dyw'r Un a'm cwyd i'r lan!'

From the other side of the wall came another couple of frustrated grunts. John couldn't be sure whether Victor was trying to hold back a ball of bitter, envious rage, or trying not to cry, or… or something far more unsavoury that John decided he'd really rather not think about while providing this free aural homoerotica. He thought to himself as Sherlock started gleefully on the second verse of that first night they'd spent together jumping over rooftops and sprinting down alleys after the Taxi Of Death, and how, at that point, he'd declared that that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever done. If only he'd known that within a few months he'd be making fake sex noises for the benefit of the brother of a suspected Arms Dealer while Sherlock Holmes simultaneously committed fraud and sang 'Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer' in a voice far more orgasmic than John thought the Welsh language could ever possibly sound. And, John was certain, within another couple of weeks he'd probably find himself swinging on a chandelier waving a machete above his head while Sherlock wrestled a python with the Star of India between his teeth, or something else that would make this night too seem utterly humdrum and mundane.

'God, I love you.'

John looked up from his crossword book. It had been Sherlock who'd said it, although when John looked across, Sherlock still had his eyes down on the laptop. His words had been part of the make-believe, John told himself. He heard a chair scrape in the next room, and footsteps, slowly heading towards the door.

Of course. Hearing Sherlock say that he loved another man was bound to be the final straw for Victor. Sherlock was just trying to get rid of him.

Victor was still well in earshot though. John had to keep up the pretence until he had completely gone.

'In Welsh!' he insisted, again.

Sherlock looked up from the laptop this time, and looked John in the eye. 'Llanduddno, John,' he said, matter of factly, and gave his friend a fond, grateful smile.

'Llanduddno too, Sherlock,' replied John. And he meant it, as well.

The footsteps in the next room stopped, and John could hear the door to Room 6 being opened with care not to make too much noise.

'Oh,' cried Sherlock, shaking the headboard even harder than before, 'oh! Croeso i Cymru, John! Rho i mi fanna, Rho i mi fanna!'

Sherlock's voice began to break with faked orgasm as Victor could be heard heading downstairs. 'Fel na bwyf yn llwfwrhau…'

'…llwfwrhau…' helped John, joining Sherlock with the harmony.

John was almost certain that Victor couldn't hear them any more, and that it really was just the two of them left rattling the bedframe together like idiots and singing in their loudest Fake Sex voices, but sing they did, to the end of the verse, and it was triumphant and joyful and Welsh. And at that moment there wasn't anything John would rather be doing.

'Fel na bwyf yn llwfwrhau!'

-x-

It was a nice, private little hospital. Very discreet. Lovely grounds. Not that Sherlock appreciated any of it. Mycroft didn't like to admit it, but he was rather relieved that Sherlock was out for the count when he arrived with his books.

'He's resting,' a nurse told him. She noticed the books. 'Oh, how nice. You've brought him something to read.'

'I've brought him work,' Mycroft told her.

The nurse's face crumpled in disapproval.

'He's got three early GCSEs this year,' said Mycroft. 'This unfortunate incident can't hold him back. I won't allow it. Besides, he finds throwing himself into academic work… the _right_ academic work, that is – strangely relaxing.' He passed the books over to the nurse. 'You'll see. He'll complain bitterly when you give this to him, but within an hour he'll be quietly studying, and you'll find him much more upbeat afterwards.' Mycroft paused. 'Has he eaten at all?'

'We had to force him again, I'm afraid. Water, too.'

Mycroft sighed, and smoothed down a sheet covering his sedated brother. 'Come on, Sherlock,' he muttered. 'It's been three weeks, now. He isn't worth this. He isn't worth the tiniest fraction of this. You made a mistake. You fell in love with someone who didn't deserve you. When are you going to let it go, hmm? When are you going to allow yourself to move on?'

-x-

John and Sherlock collapsed back on the bed, giggling.

'Abergavenny,' exclaimed Sherlock, producing a cigarette seemingly from nowhere. 'That's possibly the best sex I ever didn't have.'

John slapped the cigarette from Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock's only reaction was to replace it with a stick of nicotine gum, as if that was what he'd been intending to do in the first place.

'Only "possibly"?' asked John. 'I'll have to try harder next time we don't have sex.'

'It was a bit quick,' Sherlock told him, returning to the laptop.

'You had one eye on that computer the whole time.'

'Sorry, dear,' replied Sherlock with a faint smile. 'I'm on a deadline.'

John lay back and started fiddling with his phone again. He called up his email, then Facebook. Unsurprisingly, when he searched, only one Sherlock Holmes came up.

'What are you doing?' muttered Sherlock, eyes still on the laptop.

'We've just gone to all this trouble to convince the Trevors that we're an item,' John replied. 'Don't you think it'll ruin things a bit if any of them notice we're not even Facebook Friends?'

Sherlock sighed and passed John his phone. 'I'm already signed into that silly website. Friend yourself back for me.'

John did so, handed back the phone and smiled as Sherlock's page came up on his own phone. Just as he'd suspected it would be – hardly any personal information, a few status updates for show – Sherlock likes tea; Sherlock is busy, busy, busy; Sherlock is listening to Britten – that sort of thing. A handful of childhood photos. John's smile widened.

'I can see why you were called Dracula now. How did you lose all your front milk teeth at the same time?'

'Pulled them out when I was six,' Sherlock told the laptop.

John gazed at his friend, agape, hoping he was going to admit that that was a joke, but guessing that he wouldn't. 'Experiment?'

'Tooth Fairy Money. Wanted a microscope.'

John blinked to himself and clicked on a new picture, and immediately wished, again, that he hadn't. 'See what you mean about Lady Macbeth.'

'That's my Ophelia, actually,' Sherlock replied, checking his own phone. 'Lady Macbeth was Year 8. Your relationship status doesn't say you're Sarah's boyfriend.'

'We're not really boyfriend and girlfriend yet,' John explained. 'It's still early days. Finding our feet. Hence the "it's complicated". Because… well. It is.'

'Aren't so many relationships.'

'Aren't they, though.'

Sherlock fiddled with his phone for a moment longer, then set it down and turned his full attention back to the laptop.

John watched his feed as it updated.

_Sherlock Holmes has changed his relationship status to "it's complicated"._

-x-

THE END


End file.
